Jack Strong and the Prisoner of Haa'drath, page 22
part #2 of Jack Strong Chronicles Series
“What about that voice of yours?” asked Grunt.
“What voice?” asked Vyleria.
Jack's face paled. He didn't want to talk about that. He didn't want to admit to Vyleria – the girl he had a massive crush on – that he had been hearing voices (probably brought on by stress or oxygen deprivation or some kind of crazy space stuff like that). There was no way she was ever going to go out with him if she found out about him hearing things. “Oh, it's nothing,” he said. “Don't listen to Grunt. I'm sure I imagined it.”
“He didn't imagine it at all,” said Grunt. “When we were on the Xenti planet it kept warning him and telling him what was going to happen next and where to go and stuff.”
“Is this true Jack?”
“Yes,” he said, sounding a little sheepish, “but I'm not a nutter or anything.”
“Don't worry, I don't think you are. Well, maybe just a little,” she said laughing. “What did it sound like? Could you tell whose voice it was or where it came from?”
“No, if anything it sounded like myself, only a bit different.”
“Yourself? That's strange. Okay, when was the last time you heard from it?”
“Ages ago. Back on the surface of the planet.”
Vyleria made a low humming noise as she lost herself in her own thoughts, her forehead creased-up in concentration. “Jack,” she said a few moments later. “we can get the med-room to check on your brain later if you want. Although something tells me that you'll be fine. Have you tried to contact the voice yourself?”
“No, of course not. That's crazy.”
“Go on give it a try.”
“What now?”
“Yeah, why not? You never know it might shave a couple of decades off our journey.”
“Hello, is anybody there?” he said out loud to no one in particular.
“Not to us silly,” said Vyleria. “Do it in your head. That's where the voice is.”
Jack closed his eyes and focused his thoughts. Hello, he said to the darkness that swirled around in his brain, you – the one that talked to me earlier – are you there? Can you hear me?
“Hear anything?” Vyleria asked a few seconds later.
Jack shook his head.
“Oh well, it was worth a try. We better get your head checked out though just in case. Don’t want a case of space rabies on our hands.”
“See I told you there was nothing wrong,” said Vyleria after Jack emerged from the hospital bay.
“So that means that I really am hearing voices?”
“Perhaps, but we won't know until you hear it again.”
“But what if I never do?”
“Something tells me you will Jack. If it went to all that trouble to help you escape falling spaceships dropping you a line should be no trouble at all.”
“Well then, why hasn't it done that already?”
“I don't know. Maybe they are in trouble or something or maybe the spaceship is blocking the signal somehow, it could be anything.”
“Well that's hardly re-assuring.”
“Don't worry; it will all sort itself in the bosh.”
“Wash. You mean it will all sort itself out in the wash.”
“Yeah, wash sorry. I thought you said bosh? Look, it doesn't matter. This may just be the head start we need. Something will turn up, I'm sure of it.”
“It better.”
Jack thrummed the ball from his hand to the pavement as he jogged towards the football pitch, eager to get a game in before it went dark. He climbed over the stone wall, leapt onto the turf and ran towards the centre of the pitch. There was a game already on, but with luck he would be able to join one of the teams.
Daz Forrington, the captain of the school football team, was just about to let him onto his team, when a familiar voice suddenly rang out.
“Yer jokin'!” shouted Gaz Finch, whilst simultaneously spitting on the floor. “I'm not playin' with 'im. He's rubbish.”
“Come on Gaz,” said Daz. “Leave him alone. It's only a game.”
“Leave 'im alone?” he snarled, as he kicked the football at Jack's head. “Why should I do that?”
The ball cannoned into Jack's chest, knocking him down into a puddle of mud. Before he knew what was happening Gaz was towering over him like a dog would a rabbit, fangs snapping, names and insults raining down on him. He tried to get up but a knee thudded into his ribs, knocking the air out of him. He was vaguely aware of shouting, of other kids getting involved, of hands grappling at his collar. Everything was happening so slowly. It was like he was stuck in some kind of bad dream. A punch to his mouth woke him up. Before he even felt the bolt of anger surging through him, he’d shot to his feet and lashed out at Gaz, striking him with a flailing fist just below his right eye. Gaz staggered back, surprised.
“Wot… wot yer doin’?” he garbled, the fierceness strangely missing from his voice.
He waited for an answer and Jack gave it to him in the form of a right hook to his nose. It exploded. Blood dripping onto his muddy t-shirt, Gaz tried to get away, only for his feet to give way beneath him as he landed face first into the mud. Deaf to the chants of “FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!” Jack hurled himself onto Gaz, his fists thudding all over his face, as his head melted away in a welter of blood.
“Stop, you're killing him!” someone shouted out behind him. “He's had enough. Let him go.”
And they were right: he was killing him. Over and over. Just like he deserved. For picking on him, for bullying him, for robbing him of his friends, for making him feel so… weak, so pathetic.
When Jack stopped minutes or even hours later Gaz was no longer there. Nobody was. It was completely dark. He made to leave but suddenly the football pitch was transformed as four giant floodlights flicked on, drowning him in light. Then he heard a torrent of noise as four huge stands were lit-up in turn, each one filled with thousands upon thousands of baying, screaming children, each one chanting “MURDERER! MURDERER! MURDERER!”
“I'm not a murderer! I'm not a murderer!” he screeched at the top of his lungs. “I didn't kill anyone.”
Then there was another flash and suddenly an ambulance was parked in front of him. Two ambulance men got out and opened the back. They pulled out a long stretcher, upon which a blood-red blanket was draped over what Jack took to be a body. The crowd now silent, Jack padded over to the stretcher and grasped the top of the blanket with his fingers. He pulled the drape back inch by bloody inch. He expected to see Gaz with a hole in his face – the hole he'd made - but instead he only saw himself, frozen and rigid in death.
“But I don't understand,” he said out loud, to which the crowd laughed and howled with delight.
“What? Why is it funny? Why are you laughing? What have I done?”
More laughter.
More chanting.
“MURDERER! MURDERER! MURDERER!”
“Jack.”
Jack jumped out of his bed immediately. At first he thought that he was still in his dream, at his own funeral, but when he saw the shadow lurking in the corner of his bedroom he realised that he was awake. “Who's there?” he asked, trying to disguise the sliver of fear in his voice. “What are you doing here?”
There was more movement as something greyish began to glide towards him. It's a ghost, he thought. I've killed Gaz for real this time and he's come back to haunt me, to remind me of what I've done, what I've dreamt of doing every night for the last year.
The figure stepped out of the shadows and walked towards Jack, the desk and posters on the wall clearly visible behind it. It was only when it was right in front of him that Jack realised who it was.
“Ros,” he said, “you're a… you're a ghost?”
“Shh,” he said. “There's no time for that right now. I might be discovered at any moment. You've got to go back home NOW.”
“Go back home? What are you talking about? I don't want to go back home.”
“Listen,” said Ros, looking around him at things that weren't there. “You've got to take the ship to Earth. Now. Before it's too late. Before...”
“Before what?”
“Before the attack begins. Before Earth is destroyed. There's not much time...”
“What do you mean? Ros...”
But before Ros could answer he suddenly flinched as if in pain, his body melting away like mist.
He’d said the Earth was going to be attacked. But by who? And when?
Still thinking about the dream he'd had, he thought about it for a while, not quite sure what to do. He didn't want to be a bad person, he didn't want to be a murderer; he'd killed people in the Xenti attack, and he knew that if he got out of his bed, went to the control room and took the spaceship back towards Earth and whatever danger it faced then there would be more deaths on his hands, more suffering; he couldn't help that now, it was the price of heroism it seemed.
In the end there was no choice to make. He was either the boy who withered under fear, or the boy that he was slowly becoming: the boy who overcame his fears, stuck up for his friends and helped those who were helpless. He knew which one he wanted to be, and so with a wave of his hand he felt the immensity of the spaceship rush to his fingertips as space and the glimmer of stars warped and wove all around him.
The end
Jack Strong will return in 2017 in Jack Strong in Dreamland
About the Author
A native of the U.K, Heys Wolfenden lives and works in Beijing, China where he works as an English teacher. As well as his Jack Strong books, Heys is also working on a collection of sonnets about modern China. Apart from writing, Heys also likes hiking and traveling all over the world. His passport and his hiking boots are easily his most treasured possessions.
Heys Wolfenden, Jack Strong and the Prisoner of Haa'drath
